Gigi Saul Guerrero made waves earlier this year with her perfect short film, El Gigante. With a music video premiere on the horizon, Gigi aims to keep her legion of fans interested with her latest short film Madre De Dios. The short film takes a dramatic turn from her previous effort, a horror action-thriller, by lending itself to creepy supernatural elements. Does Guerrero have what it takes to make lightening strike twice? Read my review of Madre De Dios to find out.
Madre De Dios is written and directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero with co-writer Shane McKenzie and cinematographer Luke Bramley. The film also features visual effects from Chris Boots Orchard used in a story which follows a young woman who wakes up bound to an alter, helpless as she is transformed into a flesh and blood statue of Santa Muerte by two elderly Brujos whose sole purpose is to conjure the Anti-Christ into our plane of existence. Tristan Risk (American Mary, Save Yourself), Luis Javier Guiterrez, Gabriela Reynoso Cerecero and Indigo The Salmon Boa star.
Speaking with Guerrero myself, the film producer seemed awfully nervous about me reviewing her latest short film, noting, “It was my first time shooting nudity and it has a smaller budget than I’m used to, but I really wanted to tackle this story no matter what.” Luckily, Guerrero has the innate ability to make a couple thousand bucks look like a million dollars. Madre De Dios is still a well shot, good looking short film that has better picture quality than 50% of the titles I view every year. It’s got the right level of darkness, the right level of smokiness and it’s a good thing viewers can see the actors in their environment in full because Madre De Dios had an insane production designer. Every inch of property was decorated to the max without looking cluttered and no expense was wasted in gathering props. This just looks like a horror film. Plus, I loved the tarantulas that crinkled like fried onions!
And it feels like one, too. Dialogue isn’t spoken throughout Madre De Dios, unless you count the chanting and evil spell to call forth the Anti-Christ near the end. That means that viewers will have to rely on the background, the strengths of the actors to sell the plot with their bodies and faces alone, and those subconscious elements we understand as horror watchers, to “get it.” Everything flows so well and I think audiences who watch Madre De Dios without reading the synopsis will still get the gist of what’s going on. Obviously, something dealing with dark magic is occurring and the reveal at the end makes total sense, again, without the synopsis. Expert storytelling here, one that showcases a different side of witchcraft, and another fantastic performance from Tristan Risk. She is so important to the genre as an up and coming scream queen because she’s beautiful, she’s not afraid to take a risk (see what I did there?) on camera and she has the acting chops to back it all up.
Once again Guerrero has proved that she is among the top three female directors in horror and that she is an asset in driving the point home that women can work well behind the camera. Guerrero isn’t someone who wants to do horror, she’s someone who is horror – someone who tangibly understands the genre and makes top rate material for the community. Madre De Dios also establishes that horror happens even in Hispanic communities, a terrain that still is mostly uncharted except for a few titles like From Dusk Till Dawn and Dia De Los Muertos. In its favor, Madre De Dios crosses all boundaries and will appeal to all horror fans with its effortless style, amazing performances and perfect cinematography. It’s another impressive item on the Gigi Guerrero short film catalogue. Well done.
Final Score: 8.5 out of 10
